NovaSight has an eye on improving healthcare

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Two Dalhousie University medical students have started a new consulting company. Founders Saif Syed and Christopher Stone both hail from outside of Nova Scotia, but, as they made clear by naming their company NovaSight, both are committed to the province.

NovaSight is unique for a few different reasons. Most notably, its choice of consultants:

Co-founder Christopher Stone.

“NovaSight Consulting Group is a startup firm in Atlantic Canada seeking to provide innovative solutions to healthcare challenges by leveraging the unique human capital, expertise, and novel perspectives of Dalhousie students,” reads its website.

NovaSight recruits students from across a range of fields, including Medicine, Nursing, MBA, MHA, and the School of Graduate Studies.

According to the same site, “they will be placed on tailored consulting teams to solve healthcare-related problems across Atlantic Canada. This approach allows NovaSight to provide

customized, high quality solutions for biotechnology and healthcare organizations at very competitive price points.”

Ian Burkovskiy is four-and-a-half years into his pharmacology PhD at Dal, and is also the marketing and brand manager for NovaSight. Syed and Stone were unfortunately unavailable for interviews, but Burkovskiy was able to provide the details of the company.

He said that when Syed and Stone first arrived at Dalhousie, they were struck by how close everything was in Halifax, how many universities were clustered together in the heart of the city. They realized it was a hotbed of untapped potential, and were inspired to create a new kind of consulting company.

Co-founder Saif Syed.

“There are consulting companies that are much higher, bigger levels. The problem with them is that they usually pursue large projects. They are also obviously pretty expensive,” Burkovskiy said. “That’s not to say that we’re cheap, but we are an alternative solution to take a bite sized project and use the connections that we have.”

NovaSight is still relatively new, so they are still expanding their network. But Burkovskiy says they do already have a pretty developed assortment of consultants considering their youth as a company, with student consultants in all of the aforementioned fields and then some.

“Students kind of bring a novel perspective on this because they’re the new generation, they’re a new way of thinking,” said Burkovskiy.

“They have access to connections that would be hard to get if you’re just from the industry because we have access to the public and the academia sector of it. New fresh perspectives and really sort of up to date cutting edge knowledge because these are the people, well, they really are the future professionally speaking.”

Burkovskiy wasn’t able to comment on any of the company’s ongoing projects, since it’s not the place of a consulting firm to release the details – that privilege belongs to NovaSight’s clients. But even so, he said prospective clients have good reason to be confident in Stone and Syed’s vision – especially since the company is advised by Robert Zed. Zed has extensive experience in the Canadian healthcare sector, including his role as the Chair and CEO of Triangle Strategies Healthcare Consulting.

Burkovskiy says NovaSight is always looking for more potential consultants.

“We are looking for student involvement. If there is a student that has always wanted to pursue or at least try themselves out in the field of consulting, in the field of working in the healthcare environment, or has worked there before, we would absolutely love to hear from that person and see what they can do,” he said.